


somewhere they won't ever find me

by bluesandbirds



Series: threads [3]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Brothers, Dream Smp, Gen, Happy Ending, Healing, Running Away, TommyInnit Angst (Video Blogging RPF), depends on how you see it - Freeform, emotional support cows, not a songfic dw if thats not ur thing, or maybe, we're happy now, yeah no more crynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27800281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesandbirds/pseuds/bluesandbirds
Summary: and tomorrow won't remind me of todayin which tommy is mad to live, mad to be saved.aka tommyinnit: teen runawaya more official continuation of "how wars are like dodgeball" (also can be a stand-alone)
Series: threads [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034271
Comments: 91
Kudos: 1210
Collections: Completed stories I've read, Cute MCYT





	somewhere they won't ever find me

**Author's Note:**

> title from "santa fe" from newsies because that is also a tommy song  
> summary is sorta a jack kerouac quote, yea i know
> 
> i've decided to do this thing where i write three possible distinct endings to war/dodgeball and y'all can pick which one you prefer  
> "good kid" was the villain arc tommy  
> this is runaway tommy

They say _our war is done, be the vice president_.

They say _be the vice president but once your wars are done._

They say _be responsible, you're the vice president._

Be cannon fodder, the easiest target for our petty disputes. Be the candle we use for light and then _burn, burn, burn_. (He is wax, easily reshapen.)

They say _be the hero_ and treat him like a villain.

So, Tommy chooses to be nothing at all.

(He chooses himself.)

Tommy erases himself from the narrative. He picks up a pen and some paper and—like his brother taught him—he uses his words. 

He writes his way out. And he does so like this:

A letter of resignation.

An oath of renunciation.

A note, smudged and stained, and the letters on the page don’t spell _violence_ but instead _i love you i’m sorry i forgive you goodbye._

TommyInnit flees L'Manburg in the dead of the night.

He takes an enderchest and a potion of swiftness.

He leaves the netherite and the phantom membranes and the leather called _Spirit._

_"Right now we could—I mean we could just run away from here and we'd never have to... we'd have everything we'd ever wanted."_

Tommy goes and he doesn’t have his best friend and he doesn’t have _Mellohi_ or _Cat_ , but he has _B_ _locks_ and he has himself, so he takes what he can get because any longer and he’d lose one or the other.

(He thought it was them. He thought that was all they wanted. When did that change?)

Tommy saved his friends and he saved L’Manburg and now he saves himself.

(No one else will. He was the hero.)

By the time they know—if they even care—it will be too late. He is blocks and biomes and nether portals away.

(He kept that creeper head for a reason. As the Fates would have it, he and Sam rarely fall on the same side; however, the man can do this, if nothing else, for his young friend.

He doesn’t let Sam know where exactly he is going, just says _away._ After all, they are not on the same side.)

When he gets to _away,_ he finds a hill and builds himself a house out of cobblestone. He hears familiar echoes of _its ugly,_ but he tunes them out easily. Helikes it. 

Oak signs declare it _TommyInnit's Big Man Land. No Trepsassing. YOU WILL DIE._

The hill is dotted with flowers and trees that show no signs of prior disturbance. (It's been so long since he's seen nature older than a few months. Trees that don't need bone meal persuasion to reach their full potential.)

He’s almost surprised to wake up the next morning and see the stones still untouched like he left them. The grass never loses its green. The signs stay in place and the words never change. The world here is still.

There’s the sunset with the view unblocked. It’s beautiful every night. A private canvas of ethereal reds and yellows and oranges. He can watch it without worrying that it’ll be his last chance. (He is no longer afraid of running out of time.)

_“I wanna be able to see the sunset one last time before I die.”_

He adopts a herd of cows, names them each _Harley, Harry, Hugo, Holly, Hank._

He doesn’t bother with a lead or fences. He trusts them to come back.

He farms potatoes like his brother taught him and farms carrots like he taught himself.

He survives like he learned from his father, bandages his own wounds and uses skeleton bones to beautify his lawn. He survives like he’s always known how to. (Alone.)

He writes stories because he didn’t bring any with him.

He’s always been a liar, a fabricator, a wordsman.

He tries to journal like he recalls Wilbur doing during the war. It reminds him too much of his probationary accounts so he pours the inkwell over the page and watches the pitch black liquid consume.

Techno used to read stories. When Tommy was too restless but Wilbur was too tired and so he’d bring out some book or play and read big words until Tommy was too sleepy to ask what they meant.

_“Techno, recite_ _'_ _King Lear' for us.”_

(It’s one of the things he brought with him from SMPEarth. Standing on that stage by the prime path, doing _M_ _acbeth_ for his friends, it was his brother thrumming in his chest, spilling from his lips.)

He tries to remember what Techno told him about Greek mythology, heroes, and _T_ _heseus_. He knows he was exiled and then he died. He regrets not asking what happened in between.

(Theseus died and was remembered for it. Thousands of years later, Boy Nobody TommyInnit knows his name.

_Legacy._

He wonders if it was worth it.)

Tommy remembers, regrets never asking the ending, and writes his own.

(Shakespeare and the Greeks and his brothers wrote tragedies. In Tommy’s version, Theseus runs away with a princess and becomes a pirate.) 

Time passes and the only measure he has is the beating of his own heart. It has to have been a while, he has enough sunsets now to last him a few lifetimes. (His favorite happened on a night when it was cold. Streaks of purple and pink around a gold medallion.)

He no longer looks at his trees and smells smoke.

One morning, he wakes up with a funny feeling in his stomach. He goes outside and squints at the rising sun. Set against the horizon is a pink figure. His estranged brother in royal robes and all his glory.

He greets him with a lifted chin and hard-won serenity.

"Blade."

Techno looks him over. Looks at the chunk of land Tommy's carved as his own. Wrinkles his nose at the cobblestone.

“I told you so.”

Tommy fires back, “I hate you.”

“I know.”

“I don’t forgive you.”

“I know.”

“Stay?”

“Of course.”

Tommy opens his door but hesitates a moment. "Don't ruin this for me."

“You’re not president of this cow herd, are you?”

Despite himself, Tommy laughs a little. “No.”

On anyone else, the quirk of the man's lips might be considered a smile.

“Then I foresee no problems.”

There are no heroes in that cobblestone house. There are no villains. Only a boy and sometimes his brother and a collection of cows. 

History is not written in that cobblestone house. Only half-remembered myths and redstone dusted letters from a man who somehow always knows.

But, maybe, in that cobblestone home, there's a happy ending.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [my best friends and enemies (i don't want to leave you)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28018641) by [soaring_lyrebird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soaring_lyrebird/pseuds/soaring_lyrebird)




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